That’s the one that sticks — the city’s name like a news headline, one in some buried middle England sports section: some asshole is out yachting.

Douche-on-Bay. That’s the legend, in my mind, and now the whole town is named for it. The day when the patriarchal douche took to the lee side of a crescent harbor, not for sport but for better beer access. For chicks.

Every summer, there is a festival in Douche-on-Bay. We remember our heritage, of lazy questing and selfish relaxation, and we take to overcalm waters.

What I mean is: today, I am a lazy explorer. Body tired (too much to learn the ways of the marshrutka skittering about the flat city), my mind wanders around the capital I don’t know.

I know its name, though. That’s all I have. Dushanbe. It means “Monday” in Tajik. The country’s largest city by fourfold, and it’s christened for everyone’s least favorite part of the week. What a downer.

Local cognac and shisha. No hands but for sipping. Rooftop in the Dushanbe “twin towers” — a new pastel centerpiece already scarred with electrical burn marks. “If there’s an earthquake, run,” said one UN guy. “It’s coming down.”

A salad in the menu: “Salmon of weakly salted.” That’s about how I feel — a fish just about as far from an ocean as it can be, still on earth. Weakly salted. Maybe they are only salted weekly. Today is not this city’s day, but one day — I’m looking out at the world’s tallest flagpole — I think it may be worth its salt.

I’ve been scolded for taking a picture. Not allowed. You can see the whole city here, and it’s all off limits. Forget about the close up — after the Soviet Union left, and the sound came up on the young republics — our Tajik Norma isn’t ready even for the wide shot.

It’s Thursday evening now — as far as I can get from the city’s namesake. I won’t know it now. Instead, I’ll quest lazily and selfish, a reckless wanderer through total nonsense. I like spending time that way — tethered by just a few real letters. I’m at sea, but I’m sheltered somehow by the faintest hints of something true. What a way to travel.